Jeff Forman/JForman@News-Herald.com
Andrew Sherman, president of Mesocoat, shows an example of the company's corrosion-resistant coatings. The bright arc inside the pipe fragment is from a nickel-chrome alloy treatment that makes it resistant to corrosion from salt water.

Mentor native Andrew Sherman came back to Northeast Ohio in 2003 when he relocated Powdermet, a nationally recognized nanotechnology and advanced materials research and development organization, to Euclid from California.

The move, driven by lower production costs and more area investment, ultimately led to the formation of MesoCoat, a spin-out company specializing in applying wear- and corrosion-resistant coatings to oil and gas pipes.

After refining technology developed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Sherman and his team took the final step in presenting CermaClad to the commercial market in April with the opening of its new plant in Euclid.

"This facility can do about 20 kilometers in a typical production year, which is one order," Sherman said. "The Indonesia facility we're building has eight production lines. (Euclid's) has the one. It's primarily for seeding the market and small jobs in the Gulf of Mexico and the local area."

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Structured like a technology incubator, Sherman and his team are on the cutting edge of the pipe cladding industry. Wear and tear on pipes, particularly oil and gas pipelines, costs industries millions each year, he said. What makes MesoCoat's product CermaClad different than others is the plasma arc lamp or "artificial sun" technology that was developed at Oak Ridge.

"What is most unique about this lamp is that this lamp can basically melt and fuse any material known to man," said Anupam Ghildyal, manager for strategy and finance for MesoCoat. "It is mainly used for applying anti-corrosion and anti-wear materials on the inside of pipelines. That is the primary application we have right now. The oil or the gas coming up from the ground has contaminants. In order to minimize the corrosion you have to protect the metal from the inside."

Aside from the Euclid facilities, Sherman said he also has an Eastlake facility used to make prototypes and manufacturing components.

Buying a house just blocks from the house where he grew up and where he parents still live, Sherman said the business climate and transportation access helped bring Powdermet to Ohio and helped make MesoCoat possible.

"In terms of manufacturing, I think Northeast Ohio is probably one of the most cost effective in terms of skill set and in terms of support. The cost of doing business here is very low," he said. "Compared to everywhere else the world, this is a very good climate."

Also playing a role in relocating and starting manufacturing companies here was the investment the communities were willing to make.

"One of the reasons we're here is because they were willing to work with us. They invested the time to understand what we do and help us actually do what we wanted to," Sherman said. "It's nice to be wanted and it's nice to have communities that invest in and are willing to learn and invest in learning manufacturing."

There can be some regulatory risk with pioneering brand new advanced commercial technology like MesoCoat and Powdermet are doing, Sherman said. The communities where they have facilities took the time to hire consultants, understand what the companies are doing and provided help to the businesses in complying with all necessary codes.

It was an investment that paid off for Euclid, said Mayor Bill Cervenik.

"It's a great event. It's progress. We've got a very high-tech company and we've been with them all the way," he said. "Obviously (MesoCoat expanding) means a lot to us. Investment means a lot to us. We have to have a good, strong economic development department."

MesoCoat's new plant, 24112 Rockwell Drive, opened in April. The expansion means more work and collaboration also will come to businesses MesoCoat already works with.

"We produce all the equipment here with local contractors and we load stuff on rails and on boats to ship to the Gulf of Mexico," Sherman said. "One reason the steel industry was here was because of the transportation. Those reasons still exist. You don't ship steel by airplanes."

MesoCoat plans on adding 30 jobs over the next year to staff the new facility and bring it up to production levels. There's about eight jobs Sherman would like to see filled this month. Some of the recruiting is going on at Ohio universities like Case Western Reserve, Ohio State, Akron and Dayton.

"I'd say of the 49 people on this site, about 28 are advanced degree professionals in science and engineering," he said. "A few of those came out of Case or another local institution but the others we imported. In terms of skilled talent on machinery or equipment operator, we haven't had a problem. We've worked with local staffing agencies and they've been really good about that."

Engineering talent has been tricky to find in the past, Sherman added. Drawing talent from outside the U.S., MesoCoat's work force is diverse, with engineers coming from Croatia, India and Albania.

"I don't hire people who aren't interested in science. They shouldn't work in a technical organization if they don't have a passion for it," Sherman said. "We seem to like and promote the one in a thousand or one in a million-type successes. Whereas if you go into science or technology or math, it's more like an eight in 10 success story."